With a single click of his throat, the enemy commander sent the order down the line of Voy to charge. The Voy that did remain were a fraction of what they had once been before. There couldn’t be more than sixty of them now, still in fighting condition.

  “We can do this,” X said out loud for all to hear. “We can beat them!”

  The Voy came at a run, pounding over the sandy ground. One second they charged us in a line of armored bodies, the next they fell victim to the many traps set by Angel and those working with her.

  Screams ripped from their throats as they fell to the carefully laid foot snares. Each pit was only a meter wide by a meter length and a meter deep. Angel placed the metal knife-like spike pointing up then covered them with a cloth and a layer of sand.

  The trap was primitive at best, but it was effective and there were hundreds of them. We had known where each one was placed and skirted the area when we pulled back.

  The Voy fell on them with agony. In their haste to attack, the first line went down screaming in anguish while the second and third line fell on top of them.

  A mass of angry and pained Voy throats lifted to the dark sky. In the shadows the moons and stars provided, I gave the command.

  “Fire everything you’ve got and don’t stop firing until your weapons are dry!” I shouted. “Everything you’ve got, let them have it!”

  The defenders didn’t disappoint. Thirteen rifles poured into the mass of Voy along with rocks, spears, and even the few crossbows Jax had managed to build out of the steel.

  I pulled my MK II out, choosing my targets. I only had two rounds left. I needed to be smart. As fate would have it, the perfect target appeared on the battlefield. The purple-robed leader emerged at the forefront of the screaming pack of Voy, who pushed over one another, only to fall into another round of traps.

  The Voy leader was smart as he walked forward, only stepping where one of his soldiers had already tested the ground.

  He screamed at his soldiers, urging them forward. He carried a sword in one of his upper right hands, and a rifle in the lower two arms.

  He looked at me, pointing his sword at our lines.

  “Daniel, the leader may be—”

  “Got him,” I said to X, firing my last rounds at the Voy commander.

  It was a perfect shot. Just as the Voy leader opened his mouth to scream at his men to move forward, my rounds hit him in the face and open mouth.

  A splattering of blood and brain matter flew behind him as he fell to the ground, lifeless.

  Against all odds, we were managing to hold them. Now, without a leader, it was up to each enemy soldier to find it within themselves to move forward. The traps were enough to hobble them, injure them, and even hold them for a moment, but they wouldn’t kill them.

  The firepower from our lines would have to do that and the defenders we had firing the weapons weren’t exactly crack shots. The red laser rounds were going wide to the left, to the right, and above. I guessed that only one in every four actually found a mark.

  “Incoming,” Angel said via the comms. “Are they trying not to hit them on purpose?”

  “Right?” I said, going over to a shaking settler who held a rifle in his hands. I beckoned to him. He knew exactly what I was asking for, handing me the rifle like he had never wanted it in the first place.

  I rested the butt of the weapon to my shoulder, aiming slightly down the barrel.

  “Where are you?” I asked, finding target after target to put down. The enemy was nearly out of the minefield of traps. It would be over if they got to our lines. There was nowhere else to fall back to.

  “I’m in their lines,” Angel whispered in a hurry.

  I picked off Voy after Voy who got close enough to make a rush for our lines. Enemy fire hit me in the gut and shoulder, sending ripples of torment through my body. I ignored it all. What happened now meant the survival or death of this settlement.

  The smell of fuel permeated the air. Angel’s plan to run within their line and splash the fluid around was working. I wasn’t the only one that caught the smell.

  Voy who fought their way through the traps and incoming weapon fire paused now to smell the air.

  To the right of the Voy, I saw a flare tossed into the center of the mix. The bulk of the Voy forces went up in an inferno. Red-hot flames licked the cold night air as Voy screeched and clicked in misery.

  Those who were able to get out of the flames were met with my rounds as well as that of the remaining defenders.

  We killed them with impunity.

  It’s either them or us, I justified in my head as I focused on the Voy who stumbled out of the flames toward our lines. It’s them or us.

  Angel popped to life beside me.

  “Holy crip!” I yelled, almost turning my weapon on her. “You really have to give some kind of war—”

  “Daniel,” X warned.

  The words died on my lips. Angel was a mess of blood and open wounds. Running through the Voy lines, she had been shot by our side’s own sporadic fire multiple times.

  Angel fell to her knees beside me.

  Twenty-One

  “Angel, hey, hey,” I said, dropping to my knees. “Stay with me. Hang in there.”

  She was flushed. If her wounds were healing, I couldn’t tell.

  “I’ll be fine,” Angel said with a weak grin. “I just don’t heal as quickly as you do. I need to rest. You’ll have to get Jax.”

  Angel slumped forward.

  I moved just in time to catch her. I lifted her in my arms and took her back to where the defenders stood behind the waist-high wall.

  “She’s just unconscious,” X told me. “She needs to rest and let her body do what it wants to do. We can help her by stopping the bleeding, but she’ll be fine, Daniel. She’s going to make it.”

  “I need help,” I called out. “We need some bandages.”

  Sister Monroe and Cryx were by my side a moment later, taking Angel from me.

  “Did we do it?’ Cryx asked with wide bloodshot eyes. “Did we really just stop an alien invasion?”

  “The Invasion’s still coming,” I told her. “But we stopped this attack.”

  Cryx nodded. She moved off with Sister Monroe to take care of Angel.

  I stood there surveying the landscape with the rest of the defenders who remained. Our numbers had been easily cut in half, maybe even more. The smell of burnt meat that I knew was Voy filled the air around us.

  Eli came over to me. The large man held tears in his eyes. I got it. We were all a bit numb at the moment from fatigue. For most, this was their first time taking a life.

  “How—how do you do it?” Eli asked, not looking at me but instead the still burning Voy bodies. “How do you forget about all of this and act like a normal person ever again?”

  “I’m not sure forgetting this is in the cards, no matter how much we might want to,” I told him. “You learn to accept it and deal with it. It’s a part of you for the rest of your life.”

  An animalistic bellow reminded me what Angel said. I needed to go and find Jax. I didn’t have the first clue on how to talk him down from whatever animalistic urge had possessed him. I had no idea what the scientists did to him while turning him into a member of the Pack Protocol, but I couldn’t leave him like that.

  The madness I saw in his eyes when he made the transition was one of pure fury.

  “You get the wounded taken care of and close the gates,” I instructed Eli as I trotted toward the entrance of the settlement.

  “Where are you going?” Eli asked, half-panicked.

  “I’m going to go meet a monster,” I called over my shoulder.

  I made my way past the smoking Voy corpses out through the front of the gates and into the desert beyond.

  Jax’s roars came again, this time closer.

  It was a strange thing for me to feel nervous. Very few things in this world put me on edge anymore. After all, I had come face to face with murderous aliens and killed them.

  Trotting into the dark desert of Mars to find a man gone animal was still enough to get me worried.

  “Remember to approach slowly and talk him down,” X advised. “We don’t know how much of Jax is actually in there at this point. Weapons had no effect on him. The Voy blasters and blades didn’t puncture his skin.”

  “Right,” I said.

  I found Jax staring up at the night sky, breathing heavy. He looked like he had grown a size or two in his current condition. The guy was already larger than I was, but now he was near seven feet tall with a back that rippled with muscle.

  His chest rose up and down as he panted. He turned when he heard me approach. Those blood red eyes took me in with a gleam of rage.

  “Easy,” I told him, opening both hands to show I had no weapons. “It’s me, Daniel.”

  Jax just stared.

  I walked around him to get a better view.

  X was right. There were no visible wounds on him. He was covered in dark Voy blood.

  “Can you hear me in there?” I asked. “Jax, it’s me. Can you understand me?”

  Jax’s chest fell up and down as he eyed me. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something. Fangs showed past his teeth. No words came out.

  “We need to get you back to the settlement in—in a more normalish form,” I told him. “Can you turn back?”

  Jax failed to hear the figure behind him. A wounded Voy was rising to his feet on the dune. It lifted a blaster from its side.

  Instinct kicked in. In a single fluid movement, I withdrew the knife at my belt and hurled it through the dark air at the Voy. The blade sank deep into the soft part of its throat between its helmet and chest piece.

  The Voy fell backward soundlessly behind the dune.

  Jax turned back into the rage monster he had been before. He opened his mouth wide, showing me impossibly large canines. His muscles bulged.

  “No,” I said, opening both hands again and pointing them forward to face him, “There was a Voy on the hill. I just killed him. I wasn’t throwing the knife at you.”

  Jax took a quick look behind him. Since the Voy had fallen back behind the dune, there was no evidence of the body.

  “Great,” I said out loud as Jax lunged for me.

  I ducked a meaty fist then rolled out of the way as he tried to grab me with his free hand.

  “Jax, stop, that’s enough!” I tried not to sound like I was talking to some kind of misbehaving dog. “Jax, it’s me.”

  It seemed Jax was past all rational thought at the moment.

  He leapt at me, trying to tackle me to the ground.

  Whatever happened, I knew if he got a hold of me, it was all over. And in his current state, I was not sure if he would stop at taking me out of the fight.

  I dove to the side out of his leap. He roared at me, connecting with a right fist that felt like a truck hit me. Stars exploded across my vision as my pain receptors registered the blow. I staggered to the side just in time to step in close and slam my fist into his face.

  Hitting him felt like connecting with a brick wall. I landed three blows with Jax just looking at me before I figured I should probably abandon this means of attack. If the Voy weapons couldn’t get to him then my fists had little chance.

  “Okay, hey,” I said, dropping my hands. “Maybe hitting you isn’t the best way to get through to you.”

  Jax grinned. Without any effort, he picked me up and hurled me through the night air. I slammed hard into a sand dune ten meters away.

  The wind knocked out of me, I struggled to my hands and knees.

  “I don’t think this is working,” X said out loud.

  “Really? What would give you that idea?” I asked.

  Before I could regain my feet or X could respond, Jax was standing over me again. He lifted me for a second time and hurled me through the brisk night once more.

  I crashed in a heap onto the sandy floor of the Martian landscape.

  “I’m open to suggestions,” I groaned as I fought my way to my feet.

  “I don’t think he wants to kill you,” X surmised. “He’s had opportunities in the last two attacks and instead opted to throw you instead of snap your bones.”

  “Great, so he’s just going to play with me like a dog with a bone for a while,” I said, tracking Jax’s movements as he approached again. “Any ideas?”

  “If you can get me close enough for a short period of time, I may be able to help,” X answered. “There is a chance that, like an animal, that a high-regulated frequency may act to—”

  “English, X,” I said, trying to hide the frustration in my voice.

  “Get me close and I’ll set off a sound that should calm him,” X answered.

  That was all there was time for. Jax was on top of me again.

  This time, there was a grin on his face.

  Well, at least he’s not trying to turn me into a corpse, I thought. That’s something.

  When Jax reached for me with both arms, I batted his hands away and jerked to my left, his right. In a practiced move I’d used before in the bars of the moon, I maneuvered myself around his back. I had to jump to get him in a headlock. My legs wrapped around his midsection.

  My arms around his neck felt like I was trying to choke out a piece of metal. Jax roared with a gurgle as I pressed down. He tried shaking me off then reaching behind him to grab hold of me. His arms were too muscular to give him that range of motion.

  “Anytime now,” I grunted.

  “It’s already started,” X said. “You won’t be able to hear it.”

  Sure enough, Jax’s frantic movements began to slow. Instead of his manic attempts to throw me off, he grunted something. His hands fell to his sides.

  “There we are,” I said. “Jax, I’m going to let you go now. Can I let you go now?”

  I felt his head nod in the affirmative.

  I released my hold and gently slipped off his back.

  Whatever signal X had found was working.

  “X, remind me to give you a raise,” I said.

  “Noted,” X answered.

  Jax fell to his knees, docile.

  “Jax, we need you back, buddy,” I said, looking him in the eye. “Angel’s hurt. She’s going to pull through fine, but I bet knowing that you’re safe and by her side will make her feel better.”

  That focused Jax’s attention on me. Angel’s name seemed to have a serious effect on him.

  In front of me, his red eyes transitioned back to normal. He shrank with some of the muscle receding into his body. The fangs in his mouth turned back into normal teeth.

  A few seconds later, the version of Jax I knew knelt in front of me on the sandy ground.

  “I—I’m sorry,” Jax said. He sounded exhausted. “Did I hurt you?”

  “I’m fine,” I told him. “You forgot who you’re talking to. Can you walk?”

  “Yeah, yeah, it just takes me a minute to come down,” Jax said. “Angelica?”

  “She’s safe and resting,” I answered. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  Twenty-Two

  What the settlers lacked in fighting ability, they made up in sheer work ethic. There wasn’t a lazy individual amongst the settlers or the freed prisoners and if there had been, they were dead now.

  About sixty defenders had made it through the night. Those left in the wake of the first real battle between humans and aliens were bone weary. Still, they managed to secure the gates and pile the dead Voy bodies outside, while laying the human fallen inside the settlement walls.

  The sun was just beginning to rise. Jax was with a sleeping Angel and I had found my bunk, giving in to much needed rest. I was dead on my feet. Sure, my body healed a hundred times faster than anyone else’s, but it had to pull that energy from somewhere. I hit the pillow dreaming about food.

  “Daniel, Daniel,” X’s voice woke me. “Daniel, wake up.”

  “Just two more minutes,” I mumbled.

  “Daniel, you’ve been asleep for six hours. The supply ship is arriving,” X said.

  That got my attention.

  “Six hours,” I said, sitting up in my bunk and blinking hard. My stomach felt like an empty cave of nothing. It growled something fierce. “I feel like I just shut my eyes.”

  “I was going to let you sleep, but I thought you should know,” X answered.

  “You did good.” I yawned and stretched.

  My eyes drifted across the empty room Angel, Rose, Jax, and I shared before the attack.

  Memories of Rose, the woman who would have made a wonderful member of the Pack Protocol, played through my mind. She had never given up and the same warrior spirit that lived in me I was sure resided in her as well.

  My hand instinctively went to my pocket, where I placed the chip she had pressed into my hand. I sighed, relieved that the chip was still present.

  I hopped off the bed and walked to the door. Opening the door to the small building nearly blinded me. The sun shone down in all of its midday glory.

  I blinked, trying to give my eyes time to adjust.

  Shouts were coming from the defenders who were awake. They were moving to open the main gates that had been shut after Jax and I entered the settlement walls.

  I jogged over, feeling weak. Cryx was there eating some kind of protein pouch. She looked like she had gotten some sleep herself.

  “Supply ship came in,” Cryx said with a gentle shake of her head. “Can’t wait to see the look on their faces when they see the aliens.”

  “Hey, where’d you get that?” I asked, eyeing her pouch hungrily.

  “From that building with the food they have over there. I have an extra one if you—”

  As soon as Cryx lifted the extra protein pack out of her pocket, I grabbed it as if it were life itself and started to power it down.

  “My gosh, remember to breathe,” Cryx said as I chugged the contents of the pouch.

  The protein pouch was chocolate-flavored and tasted like the best thing I had ever put into my mouth. That was one good thing about being so hungry. Everything tasted wonderful.

 

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